Venus

The planet Venus, at least in an up close and personal way, remained pretty much a mystery until 1990 when the US Magellan spacecraft launched from the Space Shuttle Atlantis was sent to explore it. Until that time the details of the planet surface remained unseen by humans and left to our imagination, since they were covered by its dense clouds. However, since the earliest days of man looking to the sky, this planet called Venus has been seen in the evening or morning. It is now described as the second planet from the sun, and besides the sun and the moon, it is one the brightest and most frequently seen “naked eye” objects in the sky. Venus is also the only planet with a female name, and it is specifically named after the ancient goddess Venus, who was celebrated in ancient Rome as the patroness of spring.

The goddess Venus represented both chastity and motherhood, she was always a symbol for sexuality and the fertility of life on earth. She is perceived as completely feminine, everything a desired woman was to be and is. Ancient peoples often attributed to her mysterious power, perhaps perceived from the way the the roaming star of heaven she is named after would appear at different times both evening and morning in the sky. Her features captures the persona of every human ideal for the feminine which had become known as feminine mystique. In her, the goddess known as Venus, chastity, beauty, fertility, sexuality and maternal love abounded, but still somewhat unpredictable as she was also fierce and feral, known as the goddess of military action as well.

People of in ancient times would fight their wars in honor of Venus, (also called Postvorta or Genetrix.) She reigned over them as the wife of Jupiter, chief god of Rome at the time. Her son Aeneas was the legendary founder of the city itself and it was to Venus, his doting mother, that the rites of spring with all its ritualistic pagan acts of devotion to the gods in Roman temples were dedicated. Her great and glorious temple, opened by the famed Julius Caesar himself in 46 BC was no doubt the pride of Rome, at least until it was damaged by fire in 80 AD.

But Venus, was not the only goddess, and goddess worship was not limited to Rome. There were gods and goddesses in every human culture of that time period. Humans used this figure of the goddess in every culture to represent their understanding of the Great Mother, the one who brought forth all life on earth. in their minds and hearts there had to be someone, somewhere, somehow greater than themselves, one who gave them birth and who somehow ruled the mysterious and seemingly magical elements of nature.

In ancient times, people were still people, and like people of today they could think and talk and reason and observe not only the natural world around them, but also understand basic things like the perils of the human condition. They had emotions and feelings to deal with as they looked out into the world around them and wondered about this thing called life, trying their best to reason and to make sense of it all. Like people of today they had relational issues too, and sought to secure the best life for themselves and their posterity.

I imagine that they too asked the important questions... things like, “What will happen to a person when he dies?’ and when they had a need and saw it miraculously met, they probably wondered, “Is there some greater being who listens to my inner thought life and causes life and circumstance to happen?” I imagine too, that much like people of our day, greatly distanced by sin, not knowing or perhaps rejecting, the true and holy God, they fell into the trap of worshipping and serving created things rather than the creator. They may believed this life was all there is and then you die, but others saw such mysteries therefore they believed in the possibilities that there were such things as goddesses and gods.

Artemis, Ishtar, Astarte, Cerridwen, Dione, Harmonia, Diana, Arianrhod, Brigid, Ashtoreth, Shing Moo, Indri , Melusine and Venus,are some of the goddess figures we know that were popular all around the world. She is found in a vast array of human cultures and by any name, is really an aberrant sort of replacement for the one true and only God. In the goddess figure is the belief that the mother, woman, is the one who gave the very first birth on earth to mankind, birth and life to everyone on earth. She is the mother of all living.

But talk about the goddess is not simply ancient we still see people talking about such things today. Not only that, but now, as then, even in America, where we have for centuries believed in "God", “the goddess” is worshiped in place of the true and living God . In bibical times it was that way to, for we see she was worshiped then as now, - “throughout all Asia and the world.” (Acts 19:27)

It's also interesting that in the book of Genesis, chapter 3 verse 20, it is the human woman Eve, who is the “mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20) Eve, the first to give birth on earth to all men, was simply called woman. The scriptures tell us that she had an origin too, she was created out of the side of man by a special act of a loving God who made her as his helper and his special friend.

Eve was not "a goddess." And if she ever was, she is not now. Deceived by the serpent she and her husband sinned together and were changed from the state of life they were created to be in. Under the serpent's deceptive powers, they would rightly have to die. They were forced to exit Eden and wait for the redemption of Almighty God, and for his promise of redemption, Jesus who we are told then became the second Adam.

It appears however that "wise and "knowing" humans have decided that they had no such "fairytale" beginning, and that they they themselves are not guilty of such a thing as "sin." They now believe that what really happened is that they evolved from nothing all by themselves and now have reached new and great heights of wisdom and knowledge about everything in the universe, even of themselves. They have even invented something called technology, and through it, have been able to see the planet Venus, up close and personal... at least until Magellan crashed the planet’s surface in 1994 and turned to vapor.

It's true, a vast majority of people do not believe such a fantastical story of origins as genesis, or God’s promise of redemption, stories of how man and the vast universe he lives within came to because. They are smarter than all of that and since they can do things early man could only dream of they believe that they have evolved to a higher order of things,. They now know every boundary of land and sea, figured out every detail of how things work, and can even imagine for themselves their own little story of origins of how the universe banged into existence so long ago. They even have the psychology of the human mind all figured out. and know why people do what they do, unfortunately accountability to a creator God is often the furthest thing in their mind.

Yes, humanity is at an incredible point in time and has come to a glorious peak, a changing point in this some call affectionately, "evolution. " And it's awkward, but they believe it, even though it cannot be proved as true, and some even vacillate between believing they come from apes or microscopic bacteria, and are quick to dismiss the bible, the commandments, sin and even hell, and this silly Judeao-Christian notion of something we call GOD.

What is even more awkward is that with such great powers to observe not only nature, but the universe, with such organized and structured wisdom about the interworkings of the world, the same folks are quick to entertain the notion that they creatures of Earth at all. If not alien beings, extra terrestrials they believe they are goddesses and gods. Women are goddesses who get their personality from the planet Venus. Men are "lesser" gods, gods with warlike tenancies, possibly even descendants from a completely different planet, which suspiciously looks like Mars.